Rental Watch: You May Want to Consider Lovely Oakland Instead

Good news for property owners, bad news for three-quarters of San Francisco: rental prices are freaking skyrocketing, and they show no sign of slowing down. Prices are up more than 20% over the last two years in the city's cheapest neighborhoods: Downtown/Civic Center, the Haight and the Western Addition, and vacancy rates are hanging low around 2-3%. On average, housing accounts for more than half the living costs for single adults in San Francisco. Even taking into account rent control (which, given the way the Supervisors race turned out, appears to be here to stay -- at least for now), this is dangerous stuff for the city's middle class. This sort of market trend could drive landlords to wield their Ellis Act rights: evicting tenants, waiting five years, then renting their units at market rates. So: East Bay exodus or Civic Center tent city?
· Rents continue to climb [SF Examiner]
· <a href="http://sf.curbed.com/archives/2008/10/07/rental_watch_sfs_on_the_up_and_up.php
">Rental Watch: SF's On the Up and Up [Curbed SF]For more stories from Curbed SF, go to sf.curbed.com.